Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1925)

prosaic raw material of May Lou H'wang (the daughter of a laundryman), several wisps of chiffon, a property box full of glass jewelry and a few softened flood lights put in the right places. The princess was lovely, languid and pungent. If she moved it was to the fara%vay music of gongs, reeds and goatskin drums. It was a strange thing that the more clothes you took off from ;May Lou the less like an .American girl she seemed. Her mvstery increased as she was revealed. Conrad Noel wondered if her flesh did have the lithe suppleness of leopards as he imagined it might, or — "Everybody is ready, Mr. Noel," the assistant director announced respectfully. "All right," Noel accepted the deference. " Run through the scene just as we did it last time, and then we'll shoot it." Noel did not often indulge in day-dreams on the set. Nor did he continue in his mental wanderings any further that afternoon. Instead, he shot a dozen more scenes in that sequence and "wrapped 'em up" before quitting time. "Woof!" said May Lou, putting a pair of slippers on her bare feet preparatory to walking to her dressing room. " If anybody said to go through that last scene again I'd tell 'em to go cook a radish. Mike," to an electrician, "give me a drag from your cigarette. I'm so tired that the only way I'll get home is on casters." LE.WING the set she had to pass Mr. Noel, still seated in the folding canvas chair with his name on it, which was his throne. He did not notice her, apparently, but when she was nearest he said, "May Lou." "Yes, Mr. Noel." jNIay Lou paused at his side. "I don't want you to be friendly with the electricians and mechanics around here." "Why not? Why should I high-hat anybody? They all know me for just what I am." Noel looked at her now. "Just what are you. May Lou?" "Why, nothing but a common or garden Chinese jane." "Weil, I've decided that you're going to be something different. So no more sharing cigarettes with this crew." That seemed to be all. ]\Iay Lou moved along. When she was out of sight around a corner she rubbed her cheek with her hand. She felt someway as if it had been cut with a whip and it still stung a little. She decided that she liked it. The next week the local newspapers carried the princess story. May Lou H'wang was. according to the imagination of the press agent, a fugitive member of the royal family exiled from China since the republic. It was a good story, embroidered on heavy silk and fragrant with eastern spices. Conrad Noel's press representative "had been working with him a long time and could accompany him on a flight of fancy without any further preparation than filling his fountain pen. That wasn't all that happened to May Lou, either. Her salary was raised dizzily and she was instructed how to spend it. That included the rental of a hillside bungalow away from all association with the laundr\-. the purchase of an entirely new wardrobe, not Chinese, biit foreign looking, as far from flapper styles as it was possible to get. Conrad Noel called sometimes at her bungalow to see how she was getting along. He never stayed more than fifteen minutes and his conversation was limited chiefly to instructions as to what she should and should not do. He was making her over HERE are Helene and Dolores Costello. You will see more of them on the screen because they have been signed by the Warner Brothers to appear in their productions. Of course you remember their father, Maurice Costello. He was the first matinee idol of the screen when he was leading man for the old Vltagraph Company. Incidentally, he was also one of the first actors of real distinction to be developed by the then-infant industry. Helene and Dolores were children then, when father was at the height of his fame. And they often played around the old studio in Brooklyn. Now they have grown up and have taken a few small parts in pictures. .Acting comes naturaUy to them; from their father they have inherited both ability and charm. They belong to that select group of young players to whom the screen has become a tradition. So make wav for the second generation! according to a pattern in his mind. When he had linished she would be, like one of his studio sets, a thing more flawless than nature. May Lou was being molded into a princess out of a story book, a creature infinitely more regal than any real one could possibly be. He hinted that slang did not fit in with the new characterization. She dropped it. save in moments of extreme privacy as when she was with her sport model brother, Frank. " Be yourself," he had implored when he had called to bring her house laundry from the paternal plant. " I knew you when you was able to vote in American." Then May Lou laughed and relapsed into the Lardncr language she was accustomed to. But with other people she watched herself, \^■hat Hollywood n\mph wouldn't if Conrad Noel, who made stars, had suggested it? In connection with Noel's plan for building up a personality around ]\Iay Lou something happened which seemed to be a very fortunate circumstance. Whether it really was fortunate or not is a matter of which Director Noel himself is the best judge. The something which happened was the arrival in Los Angeles of Suie Sing Wong, lately a lieutenant in the army of Young China and more recently still a post graduate in medical science from Oxford. He was on his way back to China to take an official position of some sort under the chaotic government which prevailed. He sent a polite note to the studio, which in turn was referred to the press agent of Conrad Noel's unit, requesting the privilege of seeing Jlay Lou H'wang at work. This looked like a good story, and Joe Connell, the P. A. above referred to, thought he would work it up a little. MAURICE^S DAUGHTERS CO, •^noi ith the grudging (but not very) consent of Conrad Noel, who hated publicity as a lizard dislikes the sunlight, it was arranged that May Lou, just then working in an especially gorgeous set and an infinitesimal costume that made her look like a splendid and slightly naughty goddess, should receive Suie Sing Wong at the studio and. in the afternoon, entertain him at tea. May Lou was, for the first time in her impudent young life, distinctly frightened. "Gee," she said, dropping her character inadvertently and lapsing into the language in which she thought, "this real salt water Chink is going to see through me like a windshield. He's going to be wise to the fact that I don't know a thing about China except that chow dogs come from there. The only Chinese I can speak is a couple of cuss words and a little pidgin English. Wouldn't I spiU the limas aU over the lot if I said to this bozo, 'No tlickee no washee, allee samee first chop laundlee' ?" "Here, here," interrupted Conrad Noel, appalled at the sudden disintegration of the character he had so carefully built up. "Your instructions are not to say anything. In the first place Chinese women aren't supposed to talk when men are around — I read that in a book — and in the second place a princess, even without a throne, would scarcely speak much to an officer of the revolutionary army that overthrew her dynasty." "Wait, chief," Joe Connell interjected, "this chap was mi.xed up with the outfit that tried to restore the monarchy, wasn't he? ' '